Get Access Reckless (Reckless, #1) Put Together By Ed Brubaker Disseminated As Digital Format
are two major issues with this work: the story, and the storytelling, Both are some of the worst I have ever seen,
The story:
the synopsis reads "Sex, drugs, and murder ins Los Angeles", which might mislead you into thinking it's aimed at adults, but it isn't.
Perhaps it is unfair of me to judge a book aimed at a younger audience as if it wasn't, but it is the worst kind of such a book it pretends to be gritty, dark and realistic, while it is anything but.
This story is a perfect example as to why I hated American superhero comicbooks as a teenager, so i wasn't at all surprised to discover that Ed Brubaked mainly wrote exactly these kinds of works.
As for the surface plot it was exactly that, A perfectly generic story, with a perfectly generic cast, I guessed half of the final plot twist after reading the first few pages, and the other half of it was so cliche I don't know what to even say about it.
Our main character is ridiculous, and not in a good way, He is the cliche brooding tough guy, but his backstory does not fit the character, There are two sides to him: a peaceful, antiwar, weedsmoking goodguy who rants about global warming, and a tough, ruthless killing machine who magically never kills anyone, more on that in a bit who cares about nothing and no one.
These two sides do not fit well together, and the reason seems simple enough: the first is the author, the second his power fantasy, For some reason, several meaningless points about the character's backstory are exactly the same as the author's, I do understand why one would write about things he knows and understands, but these points play no part in the story they are there as a selfinsert by the author and nothing more.
And the firstperson narration definitely doesn't help,
This book adheres to the classic American superhero "no killing" policy, which is responsible to much of the nonsensical issues with the plot: our protagonist singlehandedly defeats a small army of trained, armed men without having any relevant combat experience himself he was very briefly an undercover FBI agent, not a navy seal, wounds them severely but no one dies.
In fact, the story breaks immersion specifically to tell us that our protagonist stabs a guy in the chest, the guy lies on the ground holding his bloody wound, and then the main badguy walks by, tells him that he'll live, and then leaves him alone to bleed.
How does he know the guy will live how does the protagonist have the skills to stab a guy in the chest without risking death It makes no sense, and is clearly there for the singular purpose of informing the readers that this character will survive.
The bad guy then walks past other injured men, and remarks on how they are all alive,
We also see our protagonist standing over several bodies while holding a bloodied axe are we expected to believe he hit them all with the axe to the point of unconsciousness, but they will still survive
Then, our protagonist faces the bad guy in combat:
The storytelling:
Is this a comicbook A "graphicnovel" Wrong it's a novella with illustrations,
This is supposed to be a visual medium, but text describes more details than what is shown, and it's often even worse: the text describes exactly what is shown.
Now, I'm no fanatic when it comes to "show, don't tell", I think it is very appropriate to sometimes tell and not show when the situation calls for it, This book, however, isshow,tell,
I wanted to give some examples, but almost every line of narration is an example, Just choose a page at random, and you'll see it,
Maybe this is some comicbook convention or style I am unfamiliar with, and if so please correct me, But to me this goes beyond style this is an egregious misuse of the medium, You can literally take out every single illustration until only the text remains, maybe add references as to who is talking at any moment, and the story will still make perfect sense.
Since August is Murder Mystery month on my blog “August Murders,” I decided to check out the newest Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips trade paperback offering, I have found Brubakers work particularly entertaining in the past, and Phillips art adds that gritty noir feel to their crime fiction work, In Reckless, their latest TPB released in April, there is a retros aesthetic that pervades the property like a Miami Vice / Sneakers vibe, The characters are sufficiently haunted by the past and angstridden in the present, If you are looking for something both hefty and profound, you can not go wrong with Reckless, This is a murder mystery but atypical of the armchair detective with huge cinematic action sequences, I am looking forward to more of the upcoming releases of Brubaker's Reckless TPBs, One of the best teams in comics is back at it again, and this time with a series of pulp graphic novels following a problemsolver/troublemakerforhire in the same vein of Travis McGee, Parker, or Jack Reacher.
In thes, Ethan Reckless gets a visit from an old flame that not only brings back ghosts of the past, but plunges him into a plot of graphic revenge.
This first book in the series actually turned out to be pretty middleoftheroad work for Brubaker and Philips, It proved to be a little forgettable and the climax seemed to just fizzle out in a lazy way, But middleoftheroad from these guys is still better than half the work out there, and with its cracking first half, this book is still a promising beginning to what could be a good series.
Brubaker y Phillips se marcan un Equipo A con lo que el Equipo A no nos ofrecía: operaciones encubiertas del FBI, los grupos revolucionarios de losa la huída en los, tráfico de drogas, y un único protagonista, medio amnésico y con remordimientos.
Todo contado con la elegancia habitual del dúo creativo pero, también, muy lugar común con escaso riesgo, Respira propuesta de guión para una futura película de plataforma o una miniserie, además de tebeo para fans, El color de Jacob Phillips ya es todo uno con síntesis de líneas de su padre y realza el paisaje emocional de la historia con las diversas gamas cromáticas que utiliza.
SUPER FAST REVIEW:
Good but not Brubakers best though to be fair I did just read Cruel Summer which was a masterpiece!,
So as always the art and story are excellent! This one also has some suspense and good action scenes too, Theres also some comic relief that works surprisingly great mostly thanks to a pretty decent supporting character, Theres also some good dialogue,
I wasnt particularly into the main character TBH that could change in future books, Theres a global warming bit that just felt forced and didnt make any sense especially weird to see forced political moments here since Brubakers work is rarely political.
Also, I didnt like how it seemed to sort of embrace drug use between this and My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies, I seriously hope one of my favorite writers of all time doesnt have a drug problem.
Overall definitely good stuff, Book two comes out in a few months and should be pretty badass, I liked this for sure but it aint on the same level as Criminal, Fatale or The Fade Out, Still worth a read nonetheless,
/Another crime story written by Brubaker, so you know this shit gonna be good,
We have a exfbi worker, who lost some of his memory, who now runs a Movie Theater, who also happens to help people with problems when they pay him.
When a old friend comes around and asks him for help he can't deny her after their past, But once he gets tangled up in a web of lies he starts to get in over his head, Backstabbing, plenty of deaths, and a pretty fucked up ending we get everything we want from Brubaker,
The character work, as always, is really solid, The artwork, come on what do you expect, I wasn't completely sold on the partner for our main guy Reckless here, but I feel like we'll get more of her in the next volume coming out in.
Overall, if like any of Brubaker's work, this is a easy buy/read,
Aout of, Brilliant artwork and an intriguing idea,/The RECKLESS graphic
novels are unique in that they are true novels, not a collection of short comic books stitched together, This frees the creators, the acclaimed team of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, from artificial page counts the length of a comic book for their chapters, Brubakers stated intention for the RECKLESS books were to create a series character like those popular in thess, James Bond, Nick Carter, Matt Helm, and mostly Travis McGee come to mind for me, The first novel introduces Ethan Reckless who spends much of his time surfing and then taking on side jobs to recover stolen money from the clients for a cut when he needs cash.
Contacted by a former lover whose take from a robbery have been stolen by the ringleader named Wilder, Ethan methodically goes about tracking down Wilder while dealing with his own damaged memory and a ton of buried secrets.
Both Brubakers scripting and Phillips artwork are amazing and the story is the type that I love, Highly recommended and an easy five, If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire, . . Ethan Reckless.
"The ATeam" is reimagined with head writer Richard Stark putting as troubleshooter in situations whose solutions do not require a MacGyver device or a Magnum Ferrari.
No, the only Equalizer here is a complete lack of conscience, . . and maybe a hatchet.
Reckless suffered a traumatic brain injury while involved with an offshoot of the Weather Underground in thes that left him with memory gaps and distanced from feeling most emotions.
A decade later he spends his time surfing the California waves, only working as an unlicensed private investigator, "Solving problems for people," when he runs out of money and the client interests him.
Like the old girlfriend who just called,
Brubaker and Phillips deliver another gripping crime story the start of a new series stumbling only with an underwhelming and undercutting reveal in the final pages.
Everything Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips do together is the best thing, Ed Brubaker delivers yet another great crime comic, This time we've got a lead character who seems to be inspired by literary characters like Travis McGee and Matt Scudder as well as classic TV detectives like Jim Rockford and Thomas Magnum.
Great stuff set in the early 's, “Put the fucking wrench down, asshole, Im a pacifist. ”
“Great. Then so am I. ”
Reckless is yet another topoftheline crime comic by Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips, and probably the best comic/graphic novel of the year, though it is in competition with another work from them, Pulp.
I saw Reckless and read it all the way through, setting aside anything else I was supposed to be doing, as I always do when I see one of their comics come out though why am I weeks late in seeing it! Something amiss here.
One thing that calls attention to itself always in the recent new ones is the coloring by Jacob Phillips, which is different than what Elizabeth Breitweiser had been doing, a little quirkier, brighter, but its more than fine everything about this, the writing and the cartooning, is amazing pulp storytelling.
And a few times while reading it I laughed out loud with admiration, having been fooled into thinking I knew what was going on, Its a comics thrill ride into hell, I love the fact that when Ethan Reckless is telling his story we see other things going on in the panels, adding texture and layering and another broader story behind the story, things that will always figure in.
Pay attention! Although, not that it matters about paying attention, because you arent going to really get what is going on, until they let you know what is going on.
But you won't be complaining, trust me,
So what does Ethan Reckless do Hes a kind of fixer, a guy that gets paid to take care of peoples problems, outside of the law, and in the sixties he was being paid by the CIA to be an undercover agent infiltrating antiwar groups.
But he fell in love with one of the girls whose brother was part of a Weatherman offshoot group, blowing up buildings, and then he was blown up but didn't die in one, and he didnt see the girl again.
Until of course he does, After all these years she finds him to ask him to help her recover some bank heist money for him, which gets complicated, as you might have anticipated.
This is one of the places I was yelling at Brubaker and Phillips, or really more like cheering aloud, really, for pulling out the rug on me,
I love the subtitles for the various sections: This Thing I heard I Wouldnt Really Call it Work Which Way the Wind Blows The Underground Woman Fortunate Son The Way Its Done Down These Mean Streets, The Decline of Western Civilization, and so, all of them references to movies and books Brubaker knows well.
One of the reasons he is so good is that he is a reader, a consumer of everything cultural, tv, film, novels, high art, trash, and it all makes its way into his work.
What does this team do for a living Pulp graphic novels, and there will bemore coming in the next year within the Reckless World!! Im ready!
Oh, and if you don't like the name Ethan Reckless, then you don't get the pleasure Brubaker derives from pulp stories in all their corny glory.
Remember their Criminal series that features Tracy LAWLESS!!,